L’Encyclopédie de l’histoire du Québec / The Quebec History Encyclopedia

Magic
and the Indians

[This
text was originally published in 1907 by the Bureau of American Ethnology
as part of its Handbook of American Indians North of Mexico.
It was later reproduced, in 1913, by the Geographic Board of Canada.
The work done by the American Bureau was monumental, well informed and
incorporated the most advanced scholarship available at the time. In
many respects, the information is still useful today, although prudence
should be exercised and the reader should consult some of the contemporary
texts on the history and the anthropology of the North-West Indians
suggested in the bibliographic introduction to this section. The articles
were not completely devoid of the paternalism and the prejudices prevalent
at the time. While some of the terminology used would not pass the test
of our "politically correct" era, most terms have been left unchanged
by the editor. If a change in the original text has been effected it
will be found between brackets [.] The original work contained long
bibliographies that have not been reproduced for this web edition. For
the full citation, see the end of the text.]

There
are authentic accounts from various observers in many parts of the New
World , from the earliest historical period to the present time, that
the Indians practised so-called magic arts, or sorcery. The earlier
writers marvelled at these arts, and evidently wished their readers
to marvel. They often attributed the power of the Indians to Satan.
Father Acosta, in the 16 th century, spoke in awe of the Mexican
magicians flying through the air, assuming any form they pleased and
having telepathic knowledge of events occurring at distant places, and
the same may be said in a general way of the [Inuit]. The Rev. Peter
Jones wrote in the first decade of the 19 th century: "I have sometimes
been inclined to think that, if witchcraft still exists in the world,
it is to be found among the aborigines of America ." His personal experience
was among the Chippewa. The Nipissing were called Jongleurs
by the French on account of the expertness in magic of their medicine
men. Some writers of the present day marvel as much as did their predecessors;
but instead of attributing the phenomena to Satan, seek the cause in
spirits or something equally occult. The feats of Indian magicians,
as a rule, may be easily explained as sleight-of-hand tricks, and their
prophecy and telepathy as the results of collusion. Their tricks are
deceptions, very ingenious when it is considered how rude their tools
and appliances are, but not to be compared with the acts of civilized
conjurors who make no claim to superhuman aid.

Distinct
from such tricks of illusion and deceit, there is evidence that the
Indians were and still are versed in hypnotism, or, better, "suggestion."
Carver (1776-78) speaks of it among the Sioux, and J. E. Fletcher observed
it among the Menominee about the middle of the last century. Mooney
describes and pictures the condition among modern Indians.

Sleight-of-hand
was not only much employed in the treatment of disease, but was used
on many other occasions. A very common trick among Indian charlatans
was to pretend to suck foreign bodies, such as stones, out of the persons
of their patients. Records of this are found among many tribes, from
the lowest in culture to the highest, even among the Aztecs. Of course
such trickery was not without some therapeutic efficacy, for it, like
many other proceedings of the shamans, was designed to cure disease
by influence on the imagination. A Hidatsa residing in Dakota in 1865
was known by the name Cherry-in-the-mouth because he had a trick of
producing from his mouth, at any season, what seemed to be fresh wild
cherries. He had found some way of preserving cherries, perhaps in whiskey,
and it was easy for him to hide them in his mouth before intending to
play the trick; but many of the Indians considered it wonderful magic.

The
most astonishing tricks of the Indians were displayed in their fire
ceremonies and in handling hot substances, accounts of which performances
pertain to various tribes. It is said that Chippewa sorcerers could
handle with impunity red-hot stones and burning brands, and could bathe
the hands in boiling water or syrup; such magicians were called "fire-dealers"
and "fire-handlers." There, are authentic accounts from various parts
of the world of fire-dancers and fire-walks among barbarous races, and
extraordinary fire acts are performed also among widely separated Indian
tribes. Among the Arikara of what is now North Dakota, in the autumn
of 1865, when a large fire in the center of the medicine lodge had died
down until it became a bed of glowing embers, and the light in the lodge
was dim, the performers ran with apparently bare feet among the hot
coals and threw these around in the lodge with their bare hands, causing
the spectators to flee.

Source:
James WHITE, ed., Handbook of Indians of Canada, Published
as an Appendix to the Tenth Report of the Geographic Board of Canada,
Ottawa, 1913, 632p., p. 270.